The Book of Love
by valonqar
Summary: Draco Malfoy is convinced he wrote the book of love. Hermione Granger is about to prove him wrong.


_**A/N: **Sorry it's so short! This is really just a prologue, I want to see how people respond to the story before I continue on with it. So please review if you like it!_

xx

There's one thing everybody needs to know about girls, one thing that's absolutely crucial if you want to survive in this woman-eat-man world: give them flowers and chocolate and moon over them constantly? They'll walk all over you.

Blokes, they're all so convinced that girls want a guy who treats them well, but the complicated truth is that there are too many of those around. They're too boring, too vanilla. What do they want?

They want excitement.

Why do you think Pansy keeps coming back to me after all these years? It's obvious that Weasel is head-over-heels for her, as with Goyle and probably half of the males in Hogwarts, boys who would do anything for her, and has she given them a second glance? Of course not, because she has me.

I don't like her. I don't even find her all-too attractive, which I've made perfectly clear since first year. And yet she keeps on coming back, tail between her legs, eyes wide and desperate for my approval, something she'll never get.

I know what you're thinking: it must just be my exceptional love-making skills, my beautiful looks, nothing more. But I can promise you, it's much, _much _more than that.

The reality of the situation - I'm just that good. I don't think I've ever actually complimented a girl in my life without it being backhanded, or bought a girl a present, or paid for a girl's meal. And yet I'm the most wanted bachelor in Hogwarts, with every girl clawing each other out of the way to get into my bed while the rest of their blokes stand in the background, holding their flowers and chocolates and completely alone.

I'm not trying to sound self-centered. I'm just trying to make my fellow males accept the truth and move on.

There will never be anyone as good as me.

xx

"Riddle me this if you're such an expert then, Malfoy," Blaise asked from the other end of the common room, potions textbook open on his lap, looking entirely unimpressed. "You claim every girl in the school wants you, yeah?"

"I don't claim, I know. It's been proven." Because it has been. I've seen how girls react around me, regardless or looks or house or year. Zabini's jealousy would make me doubt my own talents.

"Then why is it that Granger absolutely hates your guts? You're an ass to her, and it's not like she's desperate to crawl into your bed."

I had to admit, he had a point.

It wasn't like I hadn't tried it on her. I mean, she wasn't _completely_ hideous, once you looked past the fact that she was a mudblood. I hadn't advertised what I was doing - I knew better than that. But I had definitely tried, and she had acted like she always had, and I had pretended like it never happened. Which really, it didn't, so long as I was the only person who knew about it. No way I was going to let Blaise know, not now, not when he was questioning my methods.

"Do you really think I _want _to seduce her, Blaise?" I retorted, giving him a sneer that I knew made me look completely unaffected by his comment. "I'd have to be completely desperate - not to mention blind. My talents would be wasted on her, really."

I knew that look on his face. It was the look of a challenge, and I was trying as hard as I could to avoid it. Blaise had to be mental if he thought that I would actually be going through with it, challenge or not. I didn't need his seal of approval. My method worked, and to use it on Granger would just be..._shameful_. Disgusting. Degrading. All of those things rolled into one, and Blaise knew it. He knew it, and yet he was still looking at me like with that look in his eyes, like he had something especially nasty up his sleeve.

_Sod._

"You claim it's got one hundred percent success rate, though. Right?" He was grinning like he had just been awarded with an Order of Merlin, cheeky bugger. I knew perfectly well what he was doing, and he knew that I knew, and the temptation to smack him across the face was much more intense than I had originally thought. "That you can get any girl you want fall helplessly in love with you - no love potions involved?"

"Again, I don't claim. I know." I retorted, staring him down and meeting his smile with a scowl of my own.

"Then prove it. Seduce Hermione Granger. Make her want you, then break her heart."

I wouldn't do it. It was disgusting, and besides that, I _knew_ it would never work. I had tried it for myself, it had been a miserable failure, and I had to live with that pathetic memory for the rest of my life. No way was I going to put myself through it again, not even to prove a stupid point to Zabini.

_But_ if I didn't, he would never let me live it down. Not in a million years. He would hold it over my head, torture me with it - Draco Malfoy, too afraid to try and pick up a mud..._muggleborn _like Granger. Draco Malfoy, self-proclaimed expert on all things women, can't even bring himself to hit on a bookworm Gryffindor who has probably never even snogged a girl other than the ginger Weasel. Draco Malfoy, the failure.

For the love of Salazar, he had me.

"You don't think I can do it?" I asked incredulously, raising a white-blonde eyebrow at him in disbelief. Of _course_ he didn't think I could do it, not with Granger, but I wouldn't let him know that I believed that. "What do I get if I win, then?"

I was cocky, but I wasn't an idiot. Every challenge needed a good prize, and I wasn't putting myself through the strain of trying to get with Granger for nothing.

"Pride," he answered with a smirk, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back against the green armchair behind him. "Eternal glory, my undying respect..." I rolled my eyes, shooting him a venom-filled look, and he chuckled before continuing. "Two hundred galleons out of my own pocket, then."

It wasn't a lot of money. I didn't _need_ the money, anyways. The Malfoys may not have been as rich as we were before the war, but we were still one of the wealthiest families around, and my own personal vault could feed countless families for the rest of their lives.

I didn't need it. But then again, I did.

"Deal," I replied after a moment's consideration, widening my sneer into a cocky grin. "You're going to regret this Zabini. Mark my words."

Well, one of us would.


End file.
